Lehman v. Int'l Union

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WILL LEHMAN, Plaintiff, v. INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED AUTOMOBILE, AEROSPACE, AND AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT WORKERS OF AMERICA, and NEIL M. BAROFSKY, Defendants.

No. 22-12790

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Southern Division

November 23, 2022

OPINION AND ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION AND DISMISSING COMPLAINT WITH PREJUDICE

DAVID M. LAWSON United States District Judge

Plaintiff Will Lehman has filed a complaint against the defendant International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) and court-appointed election monitor Neil Barofsky alleging defects in the notice and ballot distribution procedures put in place for the ongoing election for choosing international union officers. Lehman alleges that the procedures used are inadequate to notify the UAW membership that the election is taking place, ballots have not been distributed properly, and much of the membership has not had proper access to the ballots. He brings his claim ostensibly under Title I of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), asking that the Court intervene in the election process by extending by 30 days the deadlines for requesting and receiving ballots in the ongoing direct election of UAW officers, and requiring the Union to make additional efforts to provide “effective notice” about the election and the members' right to vote. He also filed a motion for a preliminary injunction asking for the same relief. The Court ordered responses from the defendants and from the Department of Labor through the local United States Attorney's office and held a hearing on the motion on November 22, 2022.

It is apparent from the pleadings, briefs, and parties' arguments that the plaintiff's claim actually implicates Title IV of the LMRDA, not Title I. The Court does not have subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate a claim under Title IV; claims under that statute must be presented in the first instance to the Secretary of Labor. And Lehman has no standing to assert a claim under Title I because he has not suffered a personal harm that can be redressed under the authority of that statute. The motion for preliminary injunction will be denied, and the case will be dismissed for want of subject matter jurisdiction.

I.

For the first time in its history, the UAW is choosing its officers and members of the International Executive Board (IEB) through direct election by its members, instead of selecting them at a convention of union delegates. The parties are well familiar with how that change came about.

On January 29, 2021, the Court entered a consent decree in the matter of United States v. UAW, Case No. 20-13293 (E.D. Mich.), which arose from a civil enforcement action brought by the United States against defendant UAW. The consent decree provided for the appointment by the Court of a Monitor charged with, among other things, “ensur[ing] that the election of the members of the [International Executive Board (IEB)] of the UAW shall follow the requirements of the UAW Constitution, and all applicable state and federal laws, and this decree.” Consent Decree ¶ 45, ECF No. 10, PageID.126. On May 12, 2021 the Court granted the government's unopposed motion to appoint Neil M. Barofsky as the Monitor.

Among other substantive provisions, the consent decree required the UAW to hold a member referendum on the question whether to change the method of electing members of the IEB to a “one-member, one-vote” direct election process rather than election at a convention of delegates, as IEB elections historically had been conducted. The initiative to change the election method passed by a margin of 63% to 37%, and the Court issued an order approving the results of the referendum on January 31, 2022.

During the 38th Constitutional Convention held by the UAW in July 2022, the Union's charter was amended to implement the referendum by changing the election method. The Union was to undertake the first election of IEB members by the new method during October and November 2022, and that process is ongoing at the present time. According to an “informal notice of election” published by the Monitor, all UAW members in good standing as of October 31, 2022 are eligible to vote ballots would be (and were) sent by mail to UAW members in two waves on October 17 and 24, 2022, and ballots sent in by mail must be received no later than November 28, 2022 in order to be counted. See Informal Notice of 2022 Direct Election of International Officers, https://tinyurl.com/y352ur2z. According to its own website, the UAW is one of “one of the largest and most diverse unions in North America.” See UAW: Who We Are, https://uaw.org/about. It is comprised of “more than 600 local unions” that have “more than 400,000 active members and more than 580,000 retired members in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.” Ibid.

On November 17, 2022, UAW member William Lehman filed his complaint in this matter, which named the UAW and the court-appointed Monitor as defendants. In his complaint, Lehman alleges that the Union failed to provide effective notice of the election to it members, mainly due to numerous shortfalls in its methods of maintaining membership lists and distributing correspondence to members, and that as a result the union's members largely are unaware of the election or their right to vote. Lehman pleaded claims citing Title I of the LMRDA, which sets forth a “Bill of Rights” for union members, including guarantees of their rights to vote and to have an “equal say” in elections of union officers. 29 U.S.C. § 411.

Lehman alleges that because the Union failed to provide “effective notice” to all its members about the timeline of the election and failed in other ways to provide timely ballot access, the Union has frustrated the rights of members to cast their votes and to have their say in the election of IEB officials. He does not allege that he did not receive a ballot himself or was unable to vote in the election. As it turns out, he is himself a candidate for the office of union president.

Shortly after the complaint was filed, Lehman filed the motion for a preliminary injunction and a temporary restraining order (TRO) discussed above. The motion is supported by affidavits of four union members including Lehman, two of whom attested that they requested ballots but have not received them yet. The affiants also assert that among their co-workers, “no one seems to know about the election,” and one attested that there were “no notices about the election” posted at her work site. The motion also included lengthy excerpts of the Monitor's report of the 2021 member referendum results, which noted, among other things, that only approximately 140,000 votes were cast in the referendum (allegedly approximately 13% of the entire UAW membership eligible to vote). Lehman points out that, according to a running tally maintained by the Monitor on the internet, only slightly more than 94,000 ballots had been returned as of November 16, 2022, reflecting a similarly remarkably low turnout. See Ballot Information: Received Ballot Count, https://uawvote.com/.

The Court denied the plaintiff's request for a TRO, scheduled a hearing on the motion for a preliminary injunction, set an expedited briefing schedule for the motion, and also entered an order in the matter of United States v. UAW, No 20-13293 (E.D. Mich.), directing the government to enter an appearance in the Lehman case and either file a brief as amicus curiae addressing certain issues, or a motion for leave to intervene if it desired to intervene in the matter in a capacity other than as amicus. The government has elected not to intervene, but it has filed an amicus brief in opposition to the motion. The UAW and the Monitor also have responded.

The focus of the complaint and the motion is the procedure used by the Union to give notice of the election and to distribute ballots. Notably, William Lehman is the only individual plaintiff in the case, and none of the other named and unnamed persons alluded to throughout the pleadings and in materials submitted with the motion have joined as plaintiffs. The motion is supported by four affidavits by Lehman and three other union members.

• Halle Minor, a UAW member, attested that she requested a ballot but has not received one. She also said that in her workplace “noone on the shop floor seems to know that an election is going on.”

• Lesley Johnson, a UAW member, attested that she requested a ballot on October 28, but has not received one. She also says that there are no notices at her workplace about the election, and “the UAW was not telling anyone they could vote.”

• Jacquelyn Cargile attested that it “took me far too long to finally get my ballot,” and that she had to “go out of her way to bug her union rep” about getting one.

• William Lehman, who is the lone individual plaintiff in the case, conspicuously does not attest that he did not receive a ballot or was unable to cast a ballot in the election. The bulk of his affidavit consists of hearsay reports from other union members relating to difficulties obtaining ballots or lack of notice about the election. He says that some of the complainants did not want to be identified for fear of “retribution” from the Union.

The motion also is supported by excerpts of the Monitor's referendum report, highlighting the Monitor's conclusions that the UAW violated the rules of the referendum in several instances, e.g., by using union funds to promote a campaign against the one-member, one-vote principle, and that the turnout for the referendum was remarkably low among the entire union membership eligible to vote (around 13% of the eligible membership).

In its...